Have you always wanted to be hip but been too afraid to ask how? Do you avoid going into stores like Vintage Vinyl or Rag-O-Rama for fear of being spit on with impunity by employees? Those seeking a back door into the wild world of hipsterdom should seek out Robert Lanham’s new tome The Hipster Handbook (Anchor Books).

According to the book, a hipster is “one who possesses tastes, social attitudes and opinions deemed cool by the cool.” The definition also states that “The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream.” Sounds like a worthy sociological study, no?

Before we go any further, you should know some of the hipster lingo. Instead of terming things as merely “cool” or “uncool,” persons, places and things are now termed “deck” (cool) and “fin” (uncool). They are both ridiculous terms, words that are as useless as the people who use them. If I heard anyone deeming something as either deck or fin, I would smack him or her in the mouth.

The book walks the uninitiated through hipster style, music, literature and, most importantly, lingo. There is a brief glossary in the front of The Hipster Handbook, listing more words and phrases that no well-respecting person would ever utter. Boys are called cronkites, girls are called tassels, and beer has become bronson in the new slang. Perhaps the St. Louis hipsters don’t use this new language, as I have never heard it used while eavesdropping at hipster haunts, like the Rocket Bar or Euclid Records.

But really, who are these hip elite, these souls blessed with immaculate taste and impeccable style? Do they live among us here, even at the so-unhip-it’s-almost-hip Saint Louis University campus? Hipsters do walk alongside us, with black-rimmed emo glasses and too-tight thrift-store shirts. They could lecture you at length about the best Sonic Youth album (Daydream Nation, ‘natch), but normally keep to themselves. Hey, some hipsters even write for this section of The University News, but we won’t name names.

The Hipster Handbook works because it mocks the culture and people it represents, the cognoscenti of independent culture that snub their noses at the common man. This book won’t make you a deck cronkite or tassel overnight, but it will give you a fleeting look into the inner workings of the hipster world.